Sunday was a busy and good day, buoyed by City events and nice weather. Monday and Tuesday were a bit slow.

As usual, I picked up a few lawyers going to or from work. (Work seems to always be the destination or origin for lawyers in my cab.) One lawyer was late for work but needed [...]

During my Tuesday shift I was pleasantly surprised to hear a radio station manager speaking directly to listeners for an extended period of time about the state of the station. In the past, I’ve heard station managers speak during pledge drives, but pledge drives offer a relatively small subject of conversation when compared to an [...]

I point your temporary attention to a Flash website produced by UC Berkeley j-school grad students Eric Zassenhaus and Amy Jeffries.
The video clips thumbnailed along the bottom are accurate and colorful paintings of a typical taxi shift. Well worth a view.
But wait, there’s more. The site also features insightful interviews with Heidi Machen, the SF [...]

Mayor Newsom signed a bill last week that increases gate fees for most cab drivers by $5 (effectively a $.50/hr paycut) and increases the gate fee for Compressed Natural Gas and hybrid cab drivers by $13.50 (effectively a $1.35/hr paycut).
I first learned of the gate fee increase when I showed up for work this weekend. [...]

San Francisco is really a tale of two cities: the yuppie, high income, peaceful facade of the northern and western edge of town, and the rougher, minority majority, low income Bay View/Hunters Point district.
But, you’d think that the San Francisco Chronicle, being the San Francisco Chronicle and all, would report on a murder in broad [...]

The Examiner has an update on the saga of supervisor Alioto-Pier’s original proposal to considerably increase gate fees. (A gate fee is the rental price of a taxicab charged to cab drivers.)
A much more reasonable $5 increase (compared to nearly $20) was put forward by supervisor Aaron Peskin. Supervisor Chris Daly opposed any increase, notably [...]

I condensed my usual rant about peak medallions down to a 2 minute piece for a KQED’s Perspective. It’s a quick op-ed that airs during the morning drive time. It will air again on Saturday morning.
It sounds a bit odd to hear my own voice, but it was a fun process to write for the [...]

Tourism is San Francisco’s top industry by revenue. San Francisco is the 3rd most popular destination for overseas tourists. (1) (2)
During the summer at least a quarter of all of my fares were tourists. Sometimes these visitors are aggravating — going from a downtown hotel to Pier 39 can get old after a while. [...]

You have a 7pm reservation with friends across town in the Mission. It’s 6:30 and you know MUNI won’t get you there in less than an hour, so you have to cab it. You walk to the nearest busy street and hold your hand out for what seems like forever as you walk toward your [...]

This excellent article in Slate discusses the hidden costs of parking. I won’t attempt to summarize, it’s worth reading in its entirety.
Link
It got me thinking about the cost of parking in the City, especially residential parking permits. Is $60 per year a market price? Or, is the City government subsidizing the cost of owning a [...]